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Abstract Horizontal transfer of genetic material in eukaryotes has rarely been documented over short evolutionary timescales. Here, we show that two retrotransposons,ShellderandSpoink, invaded the genomes of multiple species of themelanogastersubgroup within the last 50 years. Through horizontal transfer,Spoinkspread inD. melanogasterduring the 1980s, while bothShellderandSpoinkinvadedD. simulansin the 1990s. Possibly following hybridization,D. simulansinfected the island endemic speciesD. mauritiana(Mauritius) andD. sechellia(Seychelles) with both TEs after 1995. In the same approximate time-frame,Shellderalso invadedD. teissieri, a species confined to sub-Saharan Africa. We find that the donors ofShellderandSpoinkare likely AmericanDrosophilaspecies from thewillistoni,cardini, andrepletagroups. Thus, the described cascade of TE invasions could only become feasible afterD. melanogasterandD. simulansextended their distributions into the Americas 200 years ago, likely aided by human activity. Our work reveals that cascades of TE invasions, likely initiated by human-mediated range expansions, could have an impact on the genomic and phenotypic evolution of geographically dispersed species. Within a few decades, TEs could invade many species, including island endemics, with distributions very distant from the donor of the TE.